Misericorde
by chi-chi-chimera
Summary: Movie!verse, contains Spoilers. Mpreg, miscarriage, mentions of dub-con, non-con. Terrible things happen to Loki.


Written for a prompt at the avengerskink LJ community:- _A couple of days before the beginning of the movie, Loki came into heat in the middle of his chitauri army. He blocked out the memories of what happened, because of reasons (trauma, the effects of the sceptre, he was just crazy by this point and couldn't separate reality from disturbing fantasy, anything really). He goes the entire movie without realising anything happened._

_Cut to the end, Loki is sitting around waiting for the Avengers to capture him. He finally notices he seems to have skipped a heat and he's missing memories. He panics at the realisation that he's probably pregnant right now, and automatically tells Thor, who doesn't believe him for obvious reasons._

_Loki then realises that, given everything he's just put his body through (and everything the Hulk put his body through) he is most likely not pregnant any more. Angst? Or relief?_

_Focus preferred on the pregnancy and loss, instead of the conception - but if you want to write that scene I'd like to see it dark and dub-con/non-con. It didn't seem like Loki was exactly friendly with any of the chitauri._

* * *

Loki hurts. It is the first thing that has felt entirely real in some time. There is something about pain that centres one so wonderfully in the moment. So much lately has felt hazy and incomplete, the memories and visions of the void between worlds haunting his mind both in waking and in sleep. Things have been a little clearer since coming through to Midgard, enough to plan and plot and take his revenge as he deemed fit, but even so there had been times – thankfully while surrounded by his loyal new servants – that he had lost himself. There were things... missing. Yet he was no less deadly for it.

For some time it is about all he can do to breath, and even that is not easy. The green monster, the Avenger's pet, had been abnormally strong for a creature of Midgard. Something to do with Tesseract energy, gamma rays as they termed it...? The archer, bound to him by magic, had spoken thusly. It is painful to think his reasoning so impaired by the void that he cannot recall the details. Ah, no matter. When the time comes the monster will burn with the rest of them. Foolish monster, thinking it could be a person.

It takes some doing, but at last Loki is able to pull himself upright, his ribs shifting uncomfortably within his chest. He wonders how many are broken. Not enough to disadvantage him too severely, but sufficient to make further fighting impossible. Ahhhh. It feels like something has been knocked loose in his head. Blood under the surface. This will take time and magic to mend. Every muscle screams in agony.

In his confused state he has hardly even noticed he isn't alone. His vision swims for a moment before it focuses in on the mortals surrounding him. Damn. None of them seem to have died. How inconvenient. The archer, the little soldier of steadfast heart, has his bow drawn in obvious threat. As though such a primitive weapon could do him harm, even wounded as he is. Loki shifts against the support of the steps at his back, gathering himself. He does not intend to give these 'heroes' satisfaction in their victory.

"If it's all the same to you," he says, "I'll take that drink now."

The monster that injured him growls. He can see it wishes to finish what it started, come forward and rend his limbs from his body, crush his skull and grind his bones to dust against the floor. Yet the weakling mind of its other self controls it. These people think highly of their morals, after all. Much as in Asgard, he suspects a prisoner's punishment must be seen to be public, ritualised. He hopes to give them little of a show.

Barton and the scientist Stark force him to his feet. He cannot help but sway at first, but he takes control of himself as quickly as he is able. He will go a prideful prisoner until he can heal himself and devise an escape from whatever prison they think can hold him. This is hardly the worst pain he has ever endured. (Amongst the Chitari, for example, though it is a fuzzy and indistinct remembrance half confused with that of the void. He cannot be quite sure where one ends and the other begins.)

The pet monster shrinks down in time to let them escort him from the building via the elevators, borrowing a sheet to cover his nakedness. Such slow and laggardly Midgardian technology this is! He has time besides to think as they descend, and he finds himself musing on the archer whose glares towards him are filled with such hate. The mortal had been of great use to him. A deadly tool both in feats of arms and the knowledge he possessed. There had been one time... the memory is reluctant to come. He does not let his concern show on his face as he wrestles it into the forefront of his mind.

_The archer kneels beside the seat he has taken for his throne, pitiable though it may be. With Loki's magic binding him, there is nothing he will not do for his master. Loki tangles his fingers through short hair, an idle petting. The mortal is handsome, he thinks, for a mortal. Yet despite that he is surely overdue for the heat to come upon him, curse he once thought of sorcerers revealed to be nothing more than a sign of his own tainted heritage, he feels little desire. He does not wish to make the mortal lie with him. It is strange, that it should be so late. Yet he has other, more important concerns to occupy his mind than this. The Tesseract is proving unruly, and the Chitari are waiting. _

_Somehow it seems very important that he does not disappoint them. _

Oh. _Oh. _So much becomes clear in a moment. The heat never came, has not come since his arrival to this realm. Between now and the void there is only the Chitari. But... he does not recall it. There are only shadows, wisps of might-have-been, echoes bridging reality and imagining. He cannot tell what might have happened; only that it did. That it must have. Somewhere within him the spark of new life glows and he has been too caught up in plotting to detect it.

Yet does any child deserve the horrible fate of his lineage? This would not be the first he has borne, and though he has loved them all Asgard has not, each of them banished in secrecy by Odin to avoid the scandal to the royal family. He would not wish the name of monster on yet another of his offspring.

In that moment Loki decides. He _must_ escape at the earliest possible opportunity, take himself far away to birth the child, to raise it beyond the reach of any who would wish him harm. There are many far off places amongst Yggdrasil's branches, sheltered hollows where few travel, where one might lose themselves and live free of the fear of discovery. He must prepare all his magic and...

The elevator stops with a jolt that sends his ribs jarring against one another. Loki cannot hold back a hiss of pain, swiftly followed by a cough that brings up blood. He feels it fleck his lips before a quick swipe of his tongue licks them clean. He cannot afford to show weakness, but he thinks Stark might have seen it all the same.

"You really did a number on him didn't you," the Man of Iron says to the monster. Banner, he recalls the name now. Bad enough to be born monstrous, that fool had turned himself into one.

"It's no more than he deserves," Barton says, pushing him forward roughly. Loki smiles at him, poisonous. The archer has no power to repay his hurts. Let others feel how it is to be helpless.

They march him out into city streets choked with rubble. The Chitari caused much destruction before their own was enacted. Loki wonders whether he warned them about underestimating their foes. It doesn't really seem like something he would do. Still, if they had not the wit to be aware of it without council, they have none to blame for their failure but themselves. He hopes it is not a heritable trait, though even if it were it could not cause him to feel any less affection for the child of their union.

"Have you forged another cage for me?" he taunts his captors. "I hope you have made it harder to escape. I enjoy a challenge."

"Nay brother." Thor has been uncharacteristically silent until now, but at last he speaks. "We have discussed this with the man of Fury. You must return to Asgard to face your crimes."

"No!" The exclamation is startled from him. No! Odin shall not take another child from him. "You can't!"

"What, afraid Daddy's going to spank you?" Stark says. Loki does not dignify that with a reply.

"Thor I would have words with you," he says coldly. "In private."

"You may speak in front of my comrades-at-arms," Thor replies, looking confused. Not that it takes much to confuse him. "I know you parted from us badly but Odin is still your father and I am still your brother in all the ways that matter. You need not fear to face us. Father will be fair, you know that."

Fool. Arrogant fool. Odin Allfather has never been fair. Not since the day he took a Jotun child as spoils of war. He cannot stop the fractured laugh that spills from his lips. "_Fair_? Thor, I am with _child_. He will not be fair!"

"Loki!" Thor actually looks disappointed. If he dares to say anything of Loki's 'whore-like behaviour', so improper for a Prince of Asgard he will take what little strength he has left and strike him! "Why would you lie about something like that?"

"You think I _lie_?"

"Um, question?" Stark says, raising his hand in the air. "With child? What the hell?"

"I'm confused by this too," says the one who calls himself Captain America.

"Does that mean the thing about the horse is true?" This from Banner. Loki could scream.

"Loki has borne children before," Thor says, explaining for these mewling mortals. If Loki but had his strength... But if he could hurt them, _kill_ them, he would not be here. "Yet I do not think he speaks truly. Loki would not put a child of his in such danger as these recent plots would allow."

_But I didn't _know_,_ he wants to shout. But of course they will not believe him. Why believe Loki? Truth will avail him nothing. He will have to gather strength enough to walk Yggdrasil's ways in the short time he has before his fate – and that of his child – is sealed.

Pale and furious, he does not speak again as they wait for transportation to arrive. Far from getting better, his weakness seems only to grow as the time passes. He feels cold sweat under his armour, trickling past his collar. There is a deep ache making itself known in the pit of his belly. Fear starts to gnaw in the back of his mind. Thor was right about the dangers. If he had realised... What if the beating their pet monster gave him has harmed the child?

By the time the flying craft comes in to land it is all he can do to keep standing. His teeth are clenched against the pain, he feels bloodless and lightheaded. No. Please, no. Do not let another be taken from him before he even has the chance to see them.

It is in a daze that he is taken, stumbling, into the transport. When they make him sit he nearly falls.

"He does not look well," the woman – assassin, killer, deadly warrior – says.

"You're right." He thinks the Captain might sound worried, outside the haze that has begun to surround him. A hand falls on his shoulder, shakes him lightly. Something he ought to do in response? He cannot think. "Loki?"

"Brother?" Ah, Thor, idiot Thor. Does he still doubt the Liesmith's word?

Suddenly the visceral ache transmutes itself to pain. It is a vicious stab, a white-hot lance that pierces him through the midrift. He thinks he might have blacked out for a moment, for when he comes to he has fallen to hands and knees. Hands are touching him.

_Holding him down in the dark, helpless, blind, gripping him so that one of their number can force themselves upon him, strange anatomy an agony atop all the other hurts. His skin is aflame with a thousand tiny cuts and some chemical on their skin burns with the contact. _

No, he isn't there. That had been a nightmare, hadn't it? Not real? Just another thing from the void? He can no longer tell.

"Brother your magic," the deep, booming voice is saying beside his ear. "You must draw out the poison before it kills you!"

His magic? His magic is weak, drained, from void and travels and battles. He is not sure that what is left will be enough. He tries all the same. The power comes in fits and starts, splutters, embers, sparks. Instinct more than direction draws it to the dead thing in his womb. Bruised and broken, slain before ever it had mind to think. He sobs, but he puts the flames of his magic to it. He must burn himself clean.

He thinks he screams.

Finally it is done. The last remnants of the babe are consumed. He is too exhausted to think of moving, sprawled out as he is on cold metal. He pays no mind to that which is around him. His child is dead, murdered by a monster. Is this the fates' retribution? Is this the destiny of anything he loves, of any good that happens to him? An innocent slain for the father's sins?

Someone is stroking the tangles of his hair. "Brother?"

He weeps, and cannot stop.


End file.
